[RELz] Almalexia Spellcasting : III

» Sat May 28, 2011 7:25 am

Hey guys,

This mod edits the animation on your character so you can cast spells in the same stance as Almalexia. I updated this mod 'thuggqwerty' so that it now functions with Liztail's Animation Kit, and Hrnchamd has further improved the mod with complete compatibility with the MCP. Really hope you like it, and it runs smoothly!

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The Elder Scrolls III
MORROWIND:
Almalexia Spellcasting
By thuggqwerty (foster4cody@yahoo.com)
Current Version: 1.1

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Index:
1. Installing
2. Playing the Plugin
3. Credits

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1. Installing

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To play this plugin, you must have successfully installed Liztail's
Animation Kit (http://www.liztail.com/view_project.php?prj_id=8).

To install the plugin, unzip the entire 'alma_cast' folder into
your Data Files folder .

After you've moved it into the folder, load up Liztail's Morrowind
Animation Kit, and select the box next to 'Almalexia Spellcasting'.
Once it has been enabled, click 'Apply Anim Mods' in the bottom
left corner.

This mod has been updated to include only the necessary animations
and to remove excess bones that caused bone errors when used with
MCP animation support.

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2. Playing the Plugin

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Once the animation is enabled, the spellcasting should automatically
work. The spellcasting animations are changed for TARGET and SELF
spells. To keep a bit of variation in the games, touch spells are
NOT affected.

As with all AnimKit mods, it only affects third person animations.
Unfortunately, Beast races (Argonians and Khajiits) use a different
stance and animation set and so are unaffected by this mod.

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3. Credits

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From thugqwerty:
liztail for the morrowind animation kit this mod would not have been possible without it
bethesda softworks for the great game
and a very special thanks to the downloaders who keep mods alive.

Original mod compiled for Animation Kit by MSam.
Technical update and MCP compatibility features created by Hrnchamd.

You can download it here on http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8970.
You'll end up looking like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqTX9ctJEk.

Enjoy.

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:52 am

Thanks Sam :goodjob: Took me a minute to figure out what exactly you were releasing though.

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:18 am

This is so cool! Very, very neat! I think I will use this, if only for something different.

» Sat May 28, 2011 8:41 am

Very nice! I wonder if this would work with the MCP's swift casting beta feature. That would be sweet.

Thanks for the release! :foodndrink:

EDIT: I just tried this, and while it did work with swift casting, I am getting the same animation errors that someone described on PES. The AnimKit couldn't fix them either.

» Sat May 28, 2011 8:41 pm

A comment over that youtube videos said that it's compatible with MCP, though I have yet to try it myself.

» Sat May 28, 2011 4:15 am

I am getting the same animation errors that someone described on PES. The AnimKit couldn't fix them either.

Same story here.

-DL :chaos:

» Sat May 28, 2011 1:04 pm

The animation contains extra bones not present on the standard skeleton, and it seems to have packaged all 12MB of animation instead of just the 2 casting sequences that are replaced, potentially interfering with animations lower in the stack.

I've made a cleaned version earlier that doesn't give bone errors, but it still had problems with beast races. I'll see what I can do to make this viable.

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:04 am

The animation contains extra bones not present on the standard skeleton, and it seems to have packaged all 12MB of animation instead of just the 2 casting sequences that are replaced, potentially interfering with animations lower in the stack.

I've made a cleaned version earlier that doesn't give bone errors, but it still had problems with beast races. I'll see what I can do to make this viable.

Confirmed, I found the clean versions Hrnchamd made available in another thread for testing purposes and MCP runs without errors. The target and self animations compliment swiftcasting perfectly. However both variations of the touch spellcast animations make a large weapon swing through an actor's neck. Does anyone here know how to convert the target animation to also be the touch animation? Just copying and renaming the target animation file doesn't work.

Edit: for clarity.

» Sat May 28, 2011 12:36 pm

You have to edit the note keys in the NiTextKeyExtraData node to match the animation name.

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:58 pm

Hope you can sort this out because the animation looks great and I would love it for my warlock character, one question does it show as well in first person mode?

» Sat May 28, 2011 3:08 pm

Hey Guys,

Sorry I didn't check this thread I assumed everyone didn't really care.

I really have no knowledge on how animations work - I just did a set up suggested on TesNexus. I didn't really extensively test this, with other people, I just tried it with Dunmer male/female and Altmer.

The latest version of MCP (Morrowind Code Patch right?) won't install on my computer, so I haven't been able to check out this function.

The thing is, I can't tell who this is working for. It doesn't work for Beasts, but I've not tried it with MCP. I also don't know if it was just especially set up automatically so it worked for me on my computer.

@Adul - Does it work, but still show an error? What is this 'swift casting' function (does it make everything cast really fast?)

@Hrnchamd - Please, post an update it you can! The real reason I just ported this over was to make it easier for other people to find and stick in since the original was so vague.

I don't think it makes a difference in first person?

Sorry about all this mix up. Even in vanilla Morrowind (with no MCP) it screws up the beasts.

» Sat May 28, 2011 1:06 pm

@Adul - Does it work, but still show an error? What is this 'swift casting' function (does it make everything cast really fast?)

Nope, in addition to any anim error messages there are real, visible animation errors. For example I couldn't walk or run forward when I was testing this. This is just a guess, but might this be incompatible with Dirnae's anim mod?

Swift casting is a new beta feature of the MCP that lets you cast spells without entering the 'spell ready' stance. You can cast spells while having your weapon drawn as well.

» Sat May 28, 2011 4:30 pm

Updated full version (edit: see PES) (56kB), includes updated readme.

Please check it over and update your PES page.

» Sat May 28, 2011 8:39 pm

Well thanks to Hrnchamd, there's been a new version posted! Hooray and thanks to all involved! Hopefully this now works for everyone.

» Sat May 28, 2011 12:31 pm

The new version works for me. Thank you both.

-DL :chaos:

» Sat May 28, 2011 8:46 pm

this might sounds dumb, but, does this work with dirnae's stuff? cause i'm using that and this.. and the spell casting animations have jst VANISHED, i know what i'm doing (sorta). but just curious, conflict?

» Sat May 28, 2011 3:43 pm

Hrnchamd's version works for me without issues. Thank you both for your work! :twirl:

On closer inspection it is somewhat apparent that these animations were meant for a creature and not NPCs, as some of the bones become repositioned or scaled and might look a little bit weird depending on what type of clothing a character wears. But that's certainly not any of the authors' fault, just a limitation of the animations themselves.

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:19 am

This...

You have to edit the note keys in the NiTextKeyExtraData node to match the animation name.

...works perfectly.

Using Nifskope and Hrchamd's suggestion I was able to assign the one-handed target animation to the touch animation also. Used the MCP 2's swift casting it looks a lot better than the original which has the actor waving their weapon around, so I humbly suggest adding this as a variation of the mod.

That then got me modding the two handed weapon equip/unequip animations to use the bow equivalents, so the actor draws a large weapon from their shoulder, but that's a story for a different thread.

» Sat May 28, 2011 5:13 am

hello

i really like the spellcasting, it's so much better than vanilla.
a minute ago i tested it with the MCP beta, and all in all this promises to become just a marvelous combination. however, i discovered some issues:

1.) when you hold the tab-button to look at your character from the angle you like and start the animation, the game switches view to "from behind" for a short moment, then returning to the angle you picked (minor issue)

2.) the neck of the actor behaves weird during the animation (see screenshots). what causes this? note that the actor is quasi naked, so this may be hidden when using (proper) armor.

3.) with a shield attached to the casting hand, you will get serious clipping issues (again, see screenshots).

[img]http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/914/necku.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2705/neckshield.jpg[/img]

edit3:
oh, i see, the neck is basically what adul said. discovered some other bones that behave weird with some testing with the idle animations:

[img]http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/2268/hoverr.jpg[/img]

nice pose, eh?

also tested the idle1h-stance for the idlespell-stance. doesn't make it perfect either for the equipspell and unequipspell are still the same and the almalexia animations for those include a weapon-unsheathing which looks weird.
my overall conclusion is:

someone would have to fix the weird bones in the animations and the swiftcast feature from mcp should disable the shield during casting animations (and maybe the weapon too). then i'm going to use the animations

edit2:
little update already; when a torch is drawn during animation, the torch hand is fixed and won't do the casting circle movement (no screenshot added)

edit: my suggestions from planetelderscrolls, partially already done by That Bloke it seems

will try that this instant.

hi there,

I've got a suggestion for this:
to eliminate the transition issue for the animation (the one criticized e.g. in the youtube comments) the casting stance could also be replaced (with almalexias casting stance). this way it would transition smoothly (ofcourse).

the less important second suggestion is: you could also replace the touchspell animation with the same animation for targeted spells, as the hand gesture would fit the feeling of "i want to just reach you with my arm, to incinerate you with my evil burning hand spell" or something as well.

to bribe you (or the other modders) to do so, i'm giving a 10 in advance

)
also, i appreciate the compatibility with liztail (as i am using the beautiful animations from dirnae) and especially mcp, as i had the same error (and couldn't use the animation).

» Sat May 28, 2011 3:26 pm

Works like a charm! Before the update it didn't work for me, same little error about the NiTale thing, but after the update took effect, no errors, and awesome spell casting! I like that the Touch animation wasn't changed, and my favorite animation is the Self one.

» Sat May 28, 2011 10:14 am

Well, all your thanks should go to Hrnchamd because he's the one that made it function properly for other people.

Hope everyone has got it working now.